The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk

When one thinks of Jean Paul Gaultier, a few words come to the mind: flamboyant, campy, and questionable taste level. Such was the Brooklyn Museum's major retrospective on Gaultier's fashion career. Filled with garments ranging from the very beginnings of his career to his current venture in haute couture, the exhibition shows the full scope of Gaultier's inspirations. Whether it be the London Punk Movement or even religious figures like Mary Magdalene herself, Gaultier manages to process these inspirations through his own unique filter.

 Gaultier doesn't shy away from subversive elements, playing with ideas of gender roles, religion, sexuality, and cultural appropriation. This make sense as Gaultier himself is quite the subversive person. He tends to glamorize the grotesque, creating garments inspired by pregnant bellies, overweight women, and viscera. Along with his designs is a sense of humor manifesting, whether intentionally or unintentionally, in the digital faces projecting on the mannequins.

The exhibition is laid out in thematic motifs, placing clothes with similar aesthetic and meaning together. While this works in making the exhibition cohesive, the general layout leads to no conclusive payoff or conclusion, which is quite disappointing. One can't help but compare this to the Met's critically and commercially acclaimed retrospective of Alexander McQueen's fashion career, Savage Beauty. What that exhibition had that this lacked was an overall theme, a motif running throughout each presentation of the garments.